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Saturday, June 12, 2010

Stephen Strasburg will make the second start of his Hall of Fame career tomorrow against the Cleveland Indians. And just like Custer when he slayed the Indians, I expect Strasburg to do the same. Wait, is that right? I'll get an intern to check my facts on that one. K-Stras™ is coming off an impressive debut where he struck out 14 Pirates with no walks over 7 innings while only throwing 94 pitches. Cynics will claim that it was the perfect match-up because the Pirates are a free-swinging team and I'm sure the same will be said tomorrow after he strikes out 24 Indians. But I'm going to have to agree with Bob Costas on this one and say Strasbrug is the reincarnation of Walter Johnson. Sure, I like hyperbole. What's it to you?

I should probably nerd-up this post before you start to think I'm a complete idiot. It's too late? Oh well. Going into Saturday's games the Pirates had struck out 429 times as a team, only 3 above the league average, though their team OBP of .306 is pretty hilarious. Houston's .288 OBP is just sad. Cleveland is sixth in all of baseball at striking out with 458. Arizona is trying to lap the field, so make sure you tune in if Strasburg pitches against the Diamondbacks.

Cleveland isn't afraid to take a walk, but Strasburg will probably pound the strike zone pretty hard again. Cleveland shouldn't be much of a home run threat either as they are the third worst team at going deep. But I don't think anyone expected Delwyn Young to take Strasburg yard.

Strasburg-mania will be in full effect tomorrow. The Indians sold an additional 8,100 tickets this past week including 2,000 on the day that Strasburg was announced as the starter for tomorrow's game. I'll be watching it live. Feel free to join me on Twitter, we'll take a shot every time he strikes somebody out.